Following the release last week of the results of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life?s U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, which was widely reported as having demonstrated Americans? considerable lack thereof, we invited a dozen leading scholars to weigh in on the survey?s significance.

What, we asked, do the results of Pew?s quiz tell us about knowledge?and ignorance?of religion in the United States? And how important is the sort of religious knowledge that the survey tested to American public life?